Ilona grew up in Budapest, where her mother worked as a midwife and her stepfather in the Ministry of the Interior. In 1964 she started modelling for the Hungarian M.T.I. agency, and in the late 1960s she worked as a maid at the Duna Intercontinental Hotel, where she says she was recruited by the Hungarian secret service to spy on her at the age of 19, under the alias "Katicabogár". In the early 1970s, she moved to Italy through a marriage of convenience, where she met porn film director Riccardo Schicchi, who later starred her in several of his films. In 1973, she made her debut on the radio show "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" under the name Cicciolina, which means "Little Fleshy" in Italian, and soon became known as